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Politics & Academy Awards

Every once in a while I have this flash of memory about elections and the quality of movies, but I’m never at my computer when that happens. If you were my bride, you’d say, “Jerrie! Make a reminder note!” That’s actually a great idea but the flaw with such notes is the need to remember to look at it when it’s most useful. That never works with me. Writing a note and placing it by my computer works just about as well – it gets lost in the clutter surrounding my keyboard. The next obvious solution is to have an alarm associated with the reminder but those only go off in church when I forget to turn off the sound on my phone. That makes my first wife cranky. So, I don’t do that.

Now, here I sit, having said all that as a prelude to my totally infallible solution for electing public officials or for determining how great any movie is.

It’s all about money.

All the movie reviews you see any more begin with how much money a newly released movie brings in over its first weekend which is, sadly, equated with popularity, not quality. Makes me want to run right out and see the movies that earn the most money no matter how crappy it might be. Because of this, the obvious solution to awarding Oscars, Emmys, and whatnot, is to determine which movie earned themes money over the course of an entire year, since the last awards show, and award all prizes to the actors, producers, directors, etc., for that movie. Pretty simple, huh?

The same is true for politics. The news is all about how much any given politician has received in donations to his campaign for pretty much any office. You hear it all the time in. Therefore, why not award any office to the one who gets the most instead of wasting all our time casting votes that don’t seem to make much difference?

Or, better yet, how about having a lottery system at a designated point late in a campaign where there are only two balls in play. One ping-pong ball says “Hi”, the other says “Low”. If “Hi” wins, so does the candidate with the most donations. Conversely, if “Low” shows up, the candidate with the least donations wins.

What makes this interesting is that none of the candidates, or their contributors will have any idea what will happen so it’s a crap shoot either way.

If we stick with voting, I suggest we limit qualified votes for President to only those cast in states east of Omaha, Nebraska because by the time anyone west of there votes, the outcome has already been determined. For us on the Left Coast, why bother?